Pages

Thursday, May 21, 2015

I have recently gotten into reading. I used to hate it as a kid but now I'm wondering what I was thinking all those years! I feel like I just have to share my passion with everybody I meet. So luckily I met Chelsie from Life With Rosie and she loves to read probably more than I do. So we talked and we decided to start a book swap/book club!

Because summer is my favorite time of year and you can sit outside a read a book, I'm super excited that Chelsie wanted to create the Summer Reads Book Swap! She was inspired by a previous book swap she participated in (which I unfortunately didn't get to) and so we (read Chelsie) created this lovely swap for all of y'all (and me) to join in. Let us know if you like it, want to do it more regularly, or just tips or whatever for the book club!Your Swap Objective:
Your package should include the following:

Sign-ups open on Thursday, May 21st.
Sign-ups close on Sunday, May 30th

You will be assigned your partners on Monday, June 1st
You must mail your box out by June 15th

Link up for bloggers will be live on June 20th-please link up a post summarizing your experience/package by July 9th!

Rules:

After signing up for the swap, you must share this swap on twitter, facebook or you blog. This will help spread the word to others about the swap! You must do this within 3 days of signing up

Packages must include three books as stated in the swap objective. Be prepared to spend at least 15-20 dollars on your package, not including shipping. There are no price limits.

Send books to your partner that will fit their interests as best as possible. Email them and get to know them while curating their package!

Packages must be mailed by June 15th. If you have any problems, email your partner and host immediately.

All packages require a tracking number, You must email this tracking number to your host and your partner after you mail the package.

Dropping out after signing up will not be tolerated. By signing up for this swap, you are committing to following through with the swap. If you drop out, you will be blacklisted from all future swaps.

After receiving your package, please take the time to write about your experience and link it up. We are giving the link up a few weeks to be open so that you can take the time to even start reading a book and review it, if you so choose.

BY SIGNING UP FOR THIS SWAP, YOU ARE AGREEING TO ALL OF THESE RULES. IF YOU BREAK THESE RULES, YOU WILL BE BLACKLISTED FROM ALL FUTURE SWAPS. PLEASE DO NOT SIGN UP IF YOU CANNOT FOLLOW THROUGH WITH THE DEADLINES AND OBLIGATIONS.

We don't want anyone to be left out of the swap, so please let the host know if something arises that will prohibit you from participating.

This swap is open to U.S. residents only. We hope to open it up internationally the next time around. Sorry!
Loading...
Questions? Comments? Concerns? Be sure to send an email or leave a comment! We are so excited to get swapping this summer!

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Last month my resolution or goal was to create a new 101 in 1001. Well I've been working on it, but honestly it's hard for me to come up with 101 things I want to do in the next 1001 days! So I'm turning to y'all!

Here is what I've come up with so far. I break them down into categories to make it easier. So now it's time for y'all to give me some ideas! What would y'all want to do? What else should I put on my list?

Good Will
26. Participate in a charity event
27. Donate blood to the Red Cross

Entertainment
28. Go to a country music concert
29. Go to a football game
30. Go apple picking
31. Spend a whole afternoon relaxing in a hammock
32. Play tennis
33. Go to a baseball game
34. Go wine tasting

Healthy
37. Run (2) 10k
38. Run a half marathon
39. Do yoga everyday for a month
40. Get a healthy BMI
41. Drink 75 ounces of water everyday for a month
42. Do a yoga handstand pose
43. Don't drink soda for a month

Seasonal
44. Do an adult Easter egg hunt
45. Go to the fair
46. Ride a roller coaster
47. Collect seashells to turn into a wind chime
48. Take a walking tour of the city
49. Make a baggo game
50. Go to a drive in movie
51. Ride a ferris wheel
52. Visit a lighthouse
53. Hug a random person
54. Go bar hopping
55. Meet a cowboy
56. Carve a pumpkin
57. Make a new Thanksgiving recipe
58. Do a corn maze
59. Have a tacky Christmas sweater party
60. Make a gingerbread house
61. Build a snowman
62. Make at least 1 homemade Christmas gift

Dating
63. Go on a date
64. Have a guy buy me flowers

Other
65. Register my conceal carry permit
66. Buy a gun
67. Build up an emergency fun
68. Pay off my car in a year
69. Be a vegetarian for a week
70. Celebrate my dogs birthdays

I've already started and I'm so excited to finish my list so I can keep working on these goals!

Monday, May 18, 2015

So I meant to have some posts planned, but last week flew by. Really, it flew by. Monday quickly turned into Tuesday and Tuesday was filled with packing and before I knew it I had gotten 3 winks of sleep and I was at the airport.

I took a mini-vacation/long weekend with Suzanne to go out to Kansas to visit a few college friends. It was a blast! I has so much fun, and now I'm about to share all the fun with y'all.

If you want to see all the pictures from the weekend, you can check out #HeyIDon'tThinkWereInRICAnymore on Instagram. Very long, but kind of catchy for Kansas in my own personal opinion.

So our Wednesday started out with a huge delay. We were supposed to arrive in Kansas at 10:30 Central time, but at that time we were just getting ready to fly out of Richmond airport. So our first day was pretty much ruined by airplane troubles.

A photo posted by Ashley Bishop (@msabish15) on May 13, 2015 at 8:26am PDT

Wednesday we had quite the adventures as well. We went geocaching, visited a few cool places around Manhattan, KS, went to a cool ice cream shop on K-State campus, saw Tuttle Creek, went shopping and finally went bar hopping. Here are a few of the pictures.

A photo posted by Ashley Bishop (@msabish15) on May 14, 2015 at 11:17am PDT

Friday wasn't quite as adventurous as Thursday, but we still had a great time. We went up to Wamego, Kansas and did all the fun Wizard of Oz things. We ate lunch at Toto's Tacos, walked down the Yellow Brick Road and visited the Oz Winery. After Wamego, we went to a waterfall nearby and got all kinds of wet and dirty! When we got back home we had a nice cookout, I learned to do the two-step, Texas style and had a really nice evening.

Monday, May 11, 2015

I'm at it again. Changing things up, and honestly I think it's for the better! I've been doing some major changes in my life. I have talked about the changes a little before, but I wanted to wait to share everything until I felt like I was ready and just go all out.

My new design (lovely right?! Thanks Elizabeth!) was brought up by a huge change in my life. John and I have broken up. Things had not been going well between us for many, many months. I loved him so I didn't want to give up. I wanted to really put forth a good effort to make us work. But in the end, we just couldn't.

Since I've been listening to a lot of Eric Church lately, "Over When It's Over" has been playing on my radio a lot. Sometimes you just know you can't work past the problems, and I decided I'd had enough of not being treated how I wanted to be treated. So I moved on.

You might be asking yourself "If she moved on why the same look?" Well, I thought the old look was truly me. Yes, it had John with it, but it was me and my dream. So I kept the look with minor changes. I'm still loving it and hope to keep this look for years to come!

Some other changes in my life though is dating! Ah! Yes, dating! I have been on one date so far and have another one planned. Is dating stories something y'all would like to see in the future?

I hope to have some other great changes coming up in my life and I hope y'all will continue to follow along with me on my journey!

Monday, May 4, 2015

This past weekend was my hometown's 5k! I was so excited because this is the first 5k that I've actually planned to run for the time. I've done plenty of others which I really just wanted to finish, but this one I was in it for the time.

Another really awesome thing about this race was that my mom and I did it together, but it was her first race ever! She did so great too. I'm so glad that we've found something we can do together that is also healthy!

So when we signed up for this race we knew that it was going to have a few hills. We had been running a path that has a long low grade hill on it and figured that would help us conquer this course. Unfortunately, our regular running path was nothing like the course on Saturday. I would say that half of the race was uphill and then the other half downhill. It was brutal!

For our first little bit of running I felt like I was doing well, but it got worse as we started going up the bigger hills. Luckily we slowed down a little and walked twice but still kept a pretty good pace. We ended up finishing the race in 32:40 which is honestly a PR for me. I've never recorded myself doing anything less than 33 minutes. So I'm very happy.

I knew I did well for my own personal time, but I didn't realize how well I had done compared to the other racers. Fact being, there weren't that many young people there either so that probably helped. I actually came away with 3rd in my age group. My mom actually was 2nd in her age group. I am so proud of her. This is a huge accomplishment for her, so I hope it will help her want to continue to run with me.

Speaking of running though, I've signed up for so many more races. I have one coming up Memorial day weekend to benefit Autism, a glow run in June and the Independence Day 8k in Myrtle Beach on July 4th! I also have my eye on the High Bridge Trail Half in September, but the half seems like so much. So we'll see if I actually do that one!

Friday, May 1, 2015

I have always though of blogging as a hobby with integrity. The true bloggers, the ones who spend hours upon hours and slave over their computers to write their feelings, those are the ones with integrity.

But what is integrity really? Many definitions say it's being honest and having strong moral principals. And I would say that 99% of the bloggers I know are honest and have strong moral principals. If bloggers were not honest and did not truthfully portray at least some portion of their life, why would people want to read?

While integrity usually is associated with morals and being held to a high standard, it can also mean being whole. So that got me to thinking. As a blogger, I believe I have and need to have integrity but also to keep my story whole and true to me. I must tell my story, my thoughts and my ideas as a whole unimpaired message to keep readers interested.

As of lately, I've been having a hard time keeping up with blogging. I've been extremely busy in my personal life which has lead to less time for blogging. That's just the way life is sometimes. We all have those times when we get busy and don't have time for blogging, or worse even, want to blog but can't think of anything to write about. I have to say I'm guilty of both. And honestly nothing makes me more upset than when I want to write and have nothing popping into my head.

One of my go-to strategies when I'm stuck for ideas is to read other blogs. Sometimes they talk about a hot topic that I want to jump in on. As long as your ideas and opinions are your own, you have continued to keep your integrity. Heck, there may even be times when you and another blogger post the about the exact same topic around the same time. But if you have put your own touches and have your own spin, it's nothing more than a coincidence. You're integrity is still intact. I can remember one example was about privacy on the blog. I posted about WHOIS, and pretty much shadowed Nadine's post. But I clearly gave her credit for finding this out and even linked back to her post. I kept my integrity while still sharing somebody else's blog information. To me, this is totally cool.

Nothing makes me more upset than seeing people with low morals. If you are going to copy or mimic another person's ideas, shoot them a simple e-mail, give them credit or do something. Don't steal their thunder by taking their ideas and claiming them as your own. All it takes is a little credit and sharing some blog fame. There is plenty of fame to go around.

Copying is not cool.

Be unique, be your own person.

There is a reason we are all different. We have unique ideas of our own and if you are not being you, then who are you supposed to be?!

As you may have guessed, I have had a little run-in with a collaborative idea being copied. I work very hard to make sure that my integrity stays in tact and I come up with original ideas, give credit where credit is due and make sure my take on things is unique to me. I do not appreciate my work being claimed by somebody else.

Although this post may be considered a rant, I really do not care. I feel like I needed to get this off of my chest. Life has thrown me many curve balls in the past few days and this was the last straw. So if you are reading this and are offended by my opinions of integrity, morals and copying other people's work in general, you don't have to read. But if you agree with me, leave a comment.Let me know if you have had anything like this happen to you. Tell me what integrity means to you and how you show it on your blog.